Carol M. Johnson, executive director of Amherst Cinema Arts Center, has an unexpected response for the person who asks about her favorite film. She doesn’t have one.

“There are so many wonderful ones to choose from but it really wasn’t a love of movies that brought me here. It was about creating a center where things related to the arts could happen and about creating a place of community not just for Amherst but for the whole valley,” said Johnson, who runs the non-profit independent movie house that shows first-run films on four screens 365 days a year.

In the early 2000s, Johnson was part of the initial group of community volunteers who came together to raise money to build and open the center in 2006. The location has an academy and arts presentation history dating back to 1879. The complex has state-of-the- art cinemas. Johnson served as president on the organization’s board of directors and volunteered her time once she retired from MassMutual.

“I was asked to stay on as executive director at the beginning of 2007. It was in the nature of ‘life is what happens when you are making plans’ and I love it here,” Johnson said.

The nonprofit also operated Pleasant Street Theater in Northampton under its aegis from 2007 until last spring.

Johnson credits her business sensibilities to time spent working as a lawyer for 30 years. She credits her dedication to lessons learned from being an avid hiker of the Appalachian Trail with her husband.

“Step by step, you pay attention to make sure that you have enough income to cover your expenses, that you stay focused to fulfill your mission, and that you provide really good customer service. You really learn those things in business,” said Johnson.

“Non-profits need people with those kinds of practical skills to be well-run. It’s been my goal to have this be one of the most well-run and well-respected arts institutions in the valley.”

Although much of Johnson’s job focus is on working with others to ensure the success of events at the cinema, a good chunk of her daily itinerary is about raising the money and overseeing financials.

“Tickets pay for about 80 percent of what we need,” Johnson said. “We don’t have a foundation, college or institution or major donor behind us to make sure that we can meet our budget every year. People just can’t take us for granted. If they want us to be here, then that love really needs to be demonstrated with financial support.”

The cinema has about 2,700 members (one-year adult memberships are $60) from around the Pioneer Valley.

Johnson most enjoy spending time with the young participants in See-Hear-Feel-Film, a program that was developed elsewhere to use films to encourage literacy. Some 1,400 third graders from around the valley participated this year, the second year the program, which is in line with state curriculum standards for English language arts, was offered through the cinema.

Students visit the cinema twice to see films and learn how stories can be translated from the imagination into written story form. Three more related sessions are given in school by classroom teachers, provided by the program with supportive training and material.

“We’ve become such a visual society and we’re receiving so much of our information from visual media that it’s really important for children to be able to look at things critically and to make sense of them,” Johnson said.

“They get so very excited because they learn how to take the stories from their imaginations and turn them into something that everyone can enjoy.”

Johnson called the cinema’s offering of the program “a big commitment and happens only because we fund-raise to bring them here.”

“We look toward the community to help us keep that going,” said Johnson, the mother of two grown daughters.

One of the participating third graders from Holyoke, a city with a high rate of poverty, wrote to Johnson and her volunteers to say that visiting the cinema “was the happiest day of his life.”

“I’m really proud of our executive director of education, Jake Meginsky, because he has a great passion for that program. It was really a lot of work on our part to go to the curriculum directors, tell them about our programs and invite them to come. They really got it and the teachers absolutely love to come,” Johnson said.

Students also come from Chicopee, Easthampton, South Hadley, Northampton and Amherst to participate in the program.

Johnson likes films that educate, inform and spark discussion. These criteria play a role in how films for the cinema are chosen by film programmers David Mazor and Connie White.

Upcoming offerings include the showing of “Munch 150” on June 27 at 7:30 p.m. as part of the “Great Art on the Screen” series; Helen Mirren reprising her film role in the West End production of “The Audience” in a “National Theatre Live’ broadcast on June 13 at 7 p.m. and a sing-a-long, with costumes encouraged, showing of the film, “Grease,” on June 17 at 7:30 p.m. (Information on other times, prices, and screenings can be found on the cinema’s website.)

“When people tell me that they love the cinema and they do appreciate what it is, I do find that very inspiring because this job really is a labor of love,” Johnson said. “People tell us that they trust our judgment when it comes to picking films and that even if a film is sold out, that they will stay and watch another. They trust that the films have been selected with care and it is all because we’re working to bring great art and our community together.”

Amherst Cinema is located at 28 Amity Street in Amherst. To learn more about the cinema, call (413) 253-2547 or visit amherstcinema.org.